IncrediBots is a brand new physics-based webtoy from Grubby Games, creator of the Professor Fizzwizzle series. Much like Fantastic Contraption, the downloadable sandbox builder Phun, and Line Rider before it, IncrediBots gives you a handful of simple tools and sets you free to explore your creative impulses. Draw shapes, connect them with joints, and tweak their basic properties to create living, moving, and functioning 'bots that can perform any task (catapult, anyone?). You can even make movies, complete with text, than can be shared with the IncrediBots community!

Because of the enormous flexibility of the IncrediBots engine, you'll need a couple of minutes to familiarize yourself with the options at your disposal. A set of tutorial levels introduces the basics and will only take you a few moments to complete. The game also features a set of challenge levels with a few dozen (optional) tasks to work through, including moving objects around, climbing obstacle courses, and building catapults to hurtle shapes through the air. The real power (and fun), though, is in the sandbox mode, where you begin with a blank template and let your imagination run wild.

IncrediBots breaks down 'bot building into two basic components: shapes and joints. Using the menu at the top of the screen, draw rectangles, circles and triangles with the mouse, and connect them using rotating, fixed and sliding joints. Clicking on shapes allows you to change attributes such as density, which has precisely the affect you would expect when the contraption comes alive.

A robot isn't very interesting when it just sits there, of course. Joints give you the power to get some serious (or seriously fun) work done. Click on any existing joint to bring up an options menu on the left side of the screen. Here you can enable the motor, powering the joint to move on its own or via keyboard input. You can also adjust the speed and power in which the joint operates, useful for crafting all sorts of moving parts that can lift large loads. When everything is ready to roll, click the "play" button to see your creation come to life!

IncrediBots also features a set of more movie-centric tools that allow you to set camera focus and change the cosmetic appearance of things by removing the outline, sliding objects forward and backward, and changing colors. Everything you create can be saved as a robot or a replay movie, and you can choose to share your work with the world and even allow public edits!

Analysis: Although still technically in beta at the time of this review, IncrediBots is already an amazing piece of work. The level of control you have over your contraptions is surprisingly deep, yet everything is handled with a streamlined interface that is very simple to use. No fiddling with equations, just point and click adjustments here and there that make immediate logical sense.

The game's set-up lends itself well to building, testing, and tweaking with minimal fuss. After placing a shape the cursor automatically goes back to "select" mode, which I found quite intuitive. You can select multiple shapes by using the [shift] key, and the copy/paste and rotation tools come in handy. Just about every action is also tied to a keyboard shortcut, so after you become familiar with how things work, it's even easier to build more intricate machines.

If all of this sounds complex, don't worry, it isn't. Complete the tutorial levels, which will take all of ten minutes, and you'll be fully versed in IncrediBots creation. Be sure to check out some of the robots and replays already saved by the community, such as The Adventures of Mr. Monocle. You'll get just a small taste of the amazing flexibility this game offers. Now get out there and build some cool stuff!

107 Comments

I think everyone who likes Fantastic Contraption will like this also. This game looks like it has had an impressive amount of work put into it, and I can't wait to see the community that develops around it.

This game is lots of fun though. Definitely as addictive as fantastic contraption.

[Edit: Check your email, Jesse. I sent a reply to the email address you included with your comment. We already mentioned Phun in a previous Weekend Download feature. We have also updated this review with a link to same. Cheers! :) -Jay]

Sorry this is a bit off topic, but as this game is one of the many affected I think it's relevant to ask here.

Ever since 'upgrading' to flash player 10, many flash games haven't worked for me. I'd say roughly half of what has been featured on this site since I upgraded doesn't work. Sometimes the game will load but clicking on stuff won't do anything, sometimes it'll just be a blank grey/black box where the game should be, and sometimes it loads part of the way but won't load the rest.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, but it was the same issue. I believe the problem is with version 10, since my laptop is running linux with flash 9 and I can run every game just fine on there. I'd like to 'downgrade' to flash 9 so that I can enjoy playing these games on my home pc again, but I can't find a link to download an old version anywhere(only version 7, and that's further back then I want to go). Does anyone know where I might able to find a download for flash 9?

Really? I have Firefox and that didn't happen, JIGuest. Maybe your computer is weird.
I think this is an awesome game, although a bit complicated. Every bit as good as Fantastic Contraption, and when I need something...simpler, I'll play FC.
Love the game though...

Glad to hear you're enjoying the game! As for the crashing issues: We've heard that upgrading Flash versions resolves this issue... we've had other people tell us that right clicking in Flash causes browser hangs/crashes in other games as well, but that a Flash upgrade resolves it.

I find it kind of annoying that you can't rotate objects by set degrees. Instead of being able to make perfect 90 or 45 degree angles you have to kind of eyeball it. It would be nice to be able to choose what angle you wish to rotate things by.

However, this is a very nice little web toy, And I'll most likely be spending a lot of time playing around with it.

Agreed! A tool like that would be handy, and I'll add that to my list.

In the meantime, just to make sure you're aware: To rotate an object with a very fine degree of precision, move your mouse VERY far from the center of the object. That way, your mouse movements will cause only slight changes in the rotation of the object.

To Ryan and all the folks over at Grubby Games - WOW! Incredible work!!!
I just love any game where you get to build stuff - I'm a Fantastic Contraption nut for just that reason - but most are rather limited in what you can do; and those that do offer certain advanced features tend to be confusing and difficult to learn. But not Incredibots.
I believe this game officially ranks as my new favorite of all time.
Also, good show with the online sharing of scenes and machines! It's that sort of thing that turns a game from a momentary distraction to a lasting community that can come up with some really surprising stuff. I was amazed by some of the things that other Fantastic Contraption users came up with, and with just 5 simple, non-interactive elements. I can't wait to see all the Incredibots creations that players engineer.

Build a rolling robot (nothing too much more complex than a rectangle with wheels) that carries all the "tools" it needs (wheels, planks, ramps, etc.) on its back and uses a crane to unload what it needs where it needs it, then pick it back up again for storage.

Thanks for your kind words and suggestions, everyone! We're reading them all, and hope to add new features to improve the game. A big thing on our to-do list: A "challenge editor" so players can make their own challenges!

I notice that when I have a second Firefox window open (WINDOW, not tab) and I accidentally right-click in the Incredibots applet (I'm having the issue with FF freezing when I do that) I'm able to unfreeze FF by alt-tabbing to the other window and then back.

I notice that the mouse cursor is "doubled" after this (the windows cursor isn't replaced by the Incredibots cursor, but is on top of it instead) but otherwise it seems to work fine.
Hope this helps.

So, you're saying this if I use this in IE instead, I won't have to deal with the thing freezing when I rightclick on the *taskbar*?
Overlooking that one out-of-game problem, this thing looks fantastic, I'll probably be devoting a large chunk of tomorrow to playing it.

mscaa, your little t-bone ball is incredible, I don't know how you came up with it. Also, I've *almost* made it to the second rung in the level you provided.

Here's all that I've made so far - a solution to the first challenge - moving objects from one side to the other.http://incredibots.com/?robotID=15082
Move left and right with the arrow keys, move the shovel back and forth with Z and X.

Ironically, most of the parts I could do almost flawlessly (the first monkeybars, getting onto the second monkeybars, loading the cannon) I messed up on, but the part I had most trouble on (getting off the second monkeybars without getting the T caught on the ledge and pulling the wheel off) went better than it ever did before!

By the way, what do you call your incredibot? Looks like a unicycle to me :)

Very well done, LSN! The hardest part for me was always landing on the uneven bars with enough momentum to swing down, but that's probably because I always went full speed into the ramp. After you get past all of the monkey bars, it's not too hard.

As for the name, I haven't come up with a good name for it. I did notice it looked a lot like a unicycle. I had named the level Pickaxe Pete, though. Because it sort of looks like a little (cicular) guy dragging a pickaxe behind him when he moves. I thought of calling it T-circle, too...as opposed to T-square...ok that's stupid.

Nooooooooooo! I was just working on a Skywire tribute! Except the stuff I was using to move the skycar wasn't working, so I was going to make a gear system for it. Oh well, more time for other projects. :)

@LSN and mscaa:
At first, the cable car I was using kept falling off the track. I then made the left wheel have a density of one, and the right one a density of 30, hoping to have it tip over so I could drive it on the ground. For whatever reason, it stayed on the rails. Hopefully, it can be powerful enough to scale inclines. Feel free to use it (or redo it to your own tastes).

That's a great start, EMDF. I think my idea was more similar to LSN's. I tried putting wheels/gears on both sides of one rail, but I never could get it to move and stay on the rail at the same time. At least not the way that I wanted it. Maybe pushing the bottom gears up to the rail with pistons, to get the perfect fit, would work.

I also tried putting two sets of gears inside two rails, which worked great, except I made it too big. If I shrunk it down, it might be usable. I doubted it would turn very well, though. This sounds more like what LSN is doing, and if one of us can get this working, the car could go upside-down. Which it can't with the bot you linked.

Weird, whenever I put wheels on both sides of the track, the rectangles connecting them spazzed out, and I would end up with something similar to the gondola I made (except it had a wheel instead of the actual cabin). The only thing I allowed to collide was the track, and I still got the same result. What settings did you two use to make it work?

I think there's a slight bug I'm taking advantage of. If I just fixate rectangles for the track, the rectangle on my car that intersects the track goes nuts even if it's set not to collide.

But if I attach a sliding joint to the track, with the other end attached to a fixated shape (the triangle you see in the replay), it works fine. All I need is a block underneath the track to keep the sliding joint from going down.

I think for a similar reason any of the collide-able "obstacle shapes" I have underneath the track have to be connected to the track somehow or else the non-collide-able rectangles that that hold my car's sliding joints together end up colliding with them.

Wow, that worked like a charm (except I used two sliding joints at different angles, so nothing could move). If either of you put wheels on both sides of the track and hold it with pistons, I think you could use the "auto-oscillate" function to have it constantly pressing against the track. The piston only goes down once it's been fully extended, so if the wheels are pretty close to the track, the pistons can never fully extend, providing constant pressure.

mscaa, how exactly did you "cheat"? I didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

I made a quick and dirty example of what I was talking about (auto-oscillating pistons providing constant pressure to the track), and was able to make it do a complete circle, both forwards and backwards. I also used the bug LSN found to hold the track steady (fixated track attached to a fixated piece via a sliding joint). The only problem with this design is that you can't have the gondola be on the bottom all the time, which might cause some problems with designing a level.http://incredibots.com/?robotID=29396

Second, in response to how I "cheated". I just made a normal car, running on a invisible track below it. Nothing you see actually collides with anything. It looks almost perfect, but it's all camera tricks.

I did that because of the bug LSN was talking about, but with his solution for it, we can actually make it work. Here's a basic version that I made with the wheels inside the track method.

I used the sliding joints at different angles to hold the track in place, and crossbars along the track to keep both sides together. The pistons keep both sets of wheels on the track, and it should be able to scale any incline.

I've found another way to make track-straddling work. The first way was to attach the track to at least one sliding joint.

The second way is to have the collideable, non-fixated track attached to a fixated, non-collideable shape. This way is less flexible than the other way, though, because it means that the track can't move.

Or not...Right now if I just fixate a piece of track, it seems to work just as well. They must have updated it recently so that non-colliding shapes don't collide with anything at all anymore. Which is great!

BTW, JIGteam, if my multi-posting is getting bothersome, please tell me and I'll try to stop. But as it is, it seems that I'm pretty much the only person coming here now...

But if you zoomed out once and didn't manually move the camera at the beginning, the camera focus should have been between the pistons, which keeps all the important stuff in one screen. I guess that's mostly my fault for not saying how the camera worked, though, so sorry about that.

Since this is a beta version, I understand that there is an accepted room for improvement.

I have been wondering if there could possibly be different elements(wood, metal, rubber) that interacted with the environment differently.

eg. If you made a bot with a wooden part, you could burn it off when you are done with it, and a bot with a rubber foot could jump much farther than one with a metal one.

Also, I think there should be more possible shapes(regular for most polygons and ellipses for example) to allow a creator to have a bot with a different shape that could be made much more easliy than it currently.

Finally, I think that it would be very helpful to have a reset key so that one could start a level over if they made a mistake.

I'm finding a few slight quirks in the physics engine that's affecting the way the motors run... I'm trying to make a "Newton's Dream" style ball machine, and I'm taking care to synchronize the motors. All the calculations are correct, but some of the pieces in the windmill machine keep slipping out of alignment no matter how much I adjust the motor strength and density... it's screwing up the machine.

I love Incredibots and I play it EVERY DAY! I find it extremely hard to pull myself off the website! Whenever I visit another page, I always leave up an Incredibots tab and return to it every 5 minutes. I was recently visiting relatives, and I was constantly bored because I didn't have a computer of my own there so I had to wait for someone else to be done, and I also had to use a laptop because they didn't have PCs at their house (I happen to hate playing Incredibots on laptops because I can't build unless I have a mouse, not a touchpad).

@bob:
You can either put "0" as both limits on your joints, or put two rotating joints next to each other (but not overlapping!). The first method is the easiest, but the second method allows for things to "pop" back into place once they've been deformed significantly.

The problem with it is that I could not get the legs to properly move, so it may look a little funny when it walks. (and if you press left and right at the same time it freaks out)
Anyone have advice to make it look a bit more normal when it walks?? It does not have to actually walk since its actually moving on invisa-wheels.

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